Since Iquitos is connected to the outside world only via boat and plane and we had just gotten off the boat on the Amazon River from Colombia to Peru, we decided to pay $325 for a One-way plane ticket with a connection in Lima to reach Cuczo, our next destination.

Once we landed to Cuzco and completed negotiating the taxi fare sucesfully (dont pay more than 20 soles!), we checked into the backpackers haven called Eco Packers for 28 soles/night ($9). If we had stayed 1 more night, we could benefit from the “stay 4 nights, pay 3” deal but we were pretty overwhelmed by the touristiness of Cuzco and decided to move to Pisac earlier.

The hostel had a large courtyard with sunbathing chairs, tables, bar, tv room, pool table, free breakfast (which we found out about coincidentally on day 2) and a lot of beds. They also had a desk inside to organize various sightseeing trips, which would save you from talking with dozens of sales ppl that stop you on the street every minute.

Inside/outside of Eco Packers Hostel

Plaza de Armas, Cuzco´s main square full with colorful locals and foreigners .

Cuzco is located 3300m above the sea level, which causes altitude sickness in many of its visitors. We were lucky to shake off the mild symptoms in a couple of days without the help of a drug or coca leave products. The continent’s oldest continuously inhabited city contains massive Inca-built walls, narrow cobblestone streets and colonial architecture along with a ton of restaurants and stores for tourists.

After the heat of the jungle where we came from, Cuzco felt super cold to us both day and night except for a few times the sun shone between the clouds and without much thinking, we found ourselves negotiating prices for alpaca sweaters and scarves besides hats, gloves, all kinds of jewelry items and crystals. We were told that we were in the rainy season and it was even colder during the high (but dry) season from May-Aug.

Cristo Blanco is located on top of a hill high above Cuzco and it was built by a group of Christian Palestinians that were seeking refuge in Cusco in 1945.

Since we only spent a few days in Cuzco, I have limited recommendations and they are as follows:

-Organic chocolate making workshop @ the Chocolate Museum– 70 soles, 4 hours + bonus: you take the chocolate you’ve made! I really liked learning about the history of cocoa and the process of chocolate making.

– Jack’s – good American/Peruvian/international food in San Blas if you are homesick. – The Restaurant next to Jack’s that served menus for 7 soles.

– La Caverne de Oriente– French restaurant with prix fix lunch for 18 soles, good food and nice view of the town from the 2nd floor (in San Blas). – El Meson de Don Tomas- sort of upscale restaurant where we tried the traditional Peruvian dishes alpaca stroganoff and aji de gallina (Creamy hen stew with mushrooms). They were both delicious.

– El Hada – Yummy ice cream and a cute shop that reminded us of the stores in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Try especially the chocolate and levander flavored ice cream!

– San Pedro market – good for fruits and vegetables and sweet water fish (trout and something else) ceviche. Later on, we were told that we had been lucky that we didn’t get a stomach virus from the ceviche, oops! The other gift stands didn’t have anything different or cheaper to offer than what we had seen on the streets.

San Pedro Market

Chocolate making workshop: the process from beans to yummy creamy chocolate! Say hello to our friendly instructor-became friend Manuel if you happen to take the workshop. He was off to his Vipassana meditation training right after the workshop.

Fabulously delicious El Hada ice creamery!

After a few days in Cuzco, our new Peruvian friend Miguel whom we connected with as a good friend’s introduction, took us from our hostel to go to Pisac, the quieter and more artizanal town located 40 mins away from Cuzco. There are also many expats who have chosen to live in this lovely town. And as per Miguels introduction, meeting the lovely person Daya solved our accomodation problem quickly as he happened to own Prasada Pisac, which is one of the 2 vegan restaurants well known in Cuzco and Pisac.

We decided to stay in one of the double rooms located upstairs of the restaurant for 20 soles/person/night ($7) during the 1.5 weeks we would spend in Pisac.

Colorful Sunday Market in Pisac that gathers the locals who sell and barter their produce and tourists who are brought by tour buses for a fun day.

The munchkins of the market with their tiny companions.

Even tough the town was empty and most of the stores were closed due to the low season, we decided to stay in Pisac since it was warmer (2700m) and quieter than Cuzco and we could wake up to the beautiful views of the mountains every day.

On our first day, we met our Spanish teacher Jesus who became a good friend and our enthousiastic tour guide quickly. He was kind enough to answer our endless questions, take us to a ghost town for coca leave readings and give us a tour of the Pisac Ruins without asking anything in return. If you want a jungle tour or Spanish lessons, you can reach Jesus at his cell 992479723 or Facebook.com/Jesus.amadeus.

A stunning rainbow waiting for us at the end of the road.We tried to pass underneath but…. it was still awesome to be so close to it! 🙂

The evening we arrived to Pisac, we were invited to join a San Pedro (Huachuma in Quechua) ceremony with a group of 4 Peruvians and 4 European travelers, including us. The ceremony started at 8 pm and ended with the sunrise. We sat around the fire and drank 4 cups of San Pedro in the opening of each door (south, north, east, west) along with smoking tobacco and giving short speeches around thanking to whatever we are grateful for in our lives.

During the night, various medicine songs were sang in the company of a drum and rattle, which reminded me of the peyote ceremonies in the Vision Quest camp in Colombia a few weeks earlier. Unlike the ayahuasca experiences I’ve had so far, I didn’t have any visions nor felt connected with nature during the night. I just got drunk and tired pretty easily. Except for one of the girls, no one got sick and purged. For me, the ceremony was pretty mellow and friendly since we could also talk and joke around between songs. I left Miguel’s house skeptical about drinking San Pedro during the day tour in Machu Picchu in a couple of weeks.

If you are interested in doing San Pedro ceremonies and/or walking tours anywhere in the Sacred Valley, I highly recommend you to get in touch with Miguel. You can reach him at: pichunator@hotmail.com.

Here is what else we did around Pisac (in the Sacred Valley):

– Pisac Ruins: With Jesus’ expert opinion, we took the back way to avoid paying the entrance fee to the ruins. A 4 soles taxi ride from Pisac dropped us off at the bottom of the sacred mountain. After the adrenalin rush from crossing a bridge made out of 2 logs rushing over a crazy river and a super steep climb on the terraces, we were on the top of the mountain among the ruins in about 40 mins.

Apparently there were 2 reasons for the Incas to build these amazing terraces in the 5th century: 1- prevent erosion 2- farming different types of produce Beside the terraces and massive stone walls, it was petty cool to see the ceremonial center and several working water channels. We went down from the way regular people used and saw two waterfalls.

Pisac Ruins

– Machacancha hot springs/baños termales: We chose these hot springs due to their proximity to us so we couldquickly go and heal our rough skins as a result of the rough 1.5 months we had left behind. In order to get there from Pisac, we took a collectivo to Calca 30 mins, 2 soles and another collectivo from Calca to Machacachu 20 mins, 2.50 soles.

We got to the place pretty easily and ended it quickly. We couldn’t stay more than 5 mins in the not-so-hot and dirty hot spring pools. I recommend you not to spend your time and money for here and instead go to Lardes, which is another place located 2 hrs away from there with several real hot pools as we heard. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to do it.

Machacancha hot springs

– Coca leaf reading with Don Martin Pinedo Acuna: We had heard about this shaman from a friend we had met during the chocolate workshop and after a few google searches, we were convinced to visit him to tell us about what´s awaiting in our futures. As soon as completing our daily morning Spanish classes, we took a collectivo to Cuzco and a cab to Huasao, which is a town 20 mins away from Cuzco. On the way back, we paid 1 sol per person to the collectivo to get back to Cuzco.

After asking a couple of ppl on the street where Señor Martin lived or where the house with the condor was, it wasn’t too hard to find it. When we got to his house with a cute courtyard in which his wife was doing laundry, we found out that there was someone who had her reading in process inside and a lady with 2 kids waiting outside. We sat and waited around 30 mins and watched the rain clouds develop and explode on us.

First, I went in with Jesus who had kindly accepted to help us with the translations (and because he was curious too!) and sat across from Don Martin who was sitting under a giant stuffed condor that gave house its name. He had a smirk on his face during the reading, which gave me the impression that he was joking about me and my future. He told me a few things that matched my current status and some matrimonial and kids news that I wasn’t very happy to hear about so I decided to take this experience lightly. The reading must have taken 15-20 mins before I left his room to leave the hot seat to Daria. Once Daria was done, we both paid our 20 soles donations and left the rainy town of Huasao with question marks in our heads.

– Blue llama– decent food and seemed to have the only working wifi in town for a couple of days.

– Sapos- best Pizza I’ve had in South America so far, hands down. (Updtae: I take this coment back after visiting Uruguay) Also try the mint lemonade.

Machu Picchu – Feb 14 (Valentines Day & Full moon). We started our trip by taking a collectivo from Pisac to the grifo (gas station) at Urubamba (3.5 soles) to meet with the rest of the group and then continued to Olantaytambe where the train station to Agua Calientes was located. The rest of the group was consisted of 5 amazingly fun and brave Turkish ladies who reminded me of the women of my family in Turkey. And of course we all bonded very qucikly and had a lot of laughs together during our 2 day MP trip.

Aguas Calientes is a virtual island that is cut off from all the roads to which you can only reach via train. It is used by hundreds of tourists to stay over night to gain a head start to climb up to MP early in the morning. Hence, it is over priced and super touristy. However, it is also home to the Aguas Calientes (aka baños termales or hot springs), a rushing river, glorious green mountains and cloud forests, which hide the tops of of the mountains.

Our luxurious ride on the gringo train to Aguas Calientes

Aguas Calientes

Once we got to town after a 1.5 hr train ride, we checked in to the first hostel we saw right by the train station due to the heavy rain that welcomed us to the town. We got a double room for 20 soles/night w/private bathroom. I am not mentioning or even remembering the name of the hostel as it’s not a place I’d recommend specifically. Since our room was right by the rushing river that was flowing like nothing I had seen before, we could hear the noise very clearly from our beds, and it added a nice ambiance to our night.

The next morning, we met with 2 ppl from our group in the lobby at 5:45 am to start the hike to Machu Pichu (50 mins) while the rest stayed behind to take the bus (25 soles) to the top (20 mins).

The pictures speak for themselves but I can add to them that I understood why millions of visitors thought the MP was a sacred place since its discovery for the modern world by an American historian in 1911. It is fortunate that the Spaniards were not able to find and demolish it since it was hidden in the jungle. Apparently there are different believes about the citadel but there’s no evidence to prove any of them. It might have been made by the Incas to preserve the Inca culture or they could have just discovered the town when they had migrated to this mountain. Whatever the case is, the high quality of the stonework and architecture indicate that the place was used as an important social and ceremonial center at the time.

A-team resting during the 1 hr climb up to Machu Pichu

Our walk to the Sun Gate, which was our first destination, was rewarded by the extreme happiness and peacefulness we all felt to have set foot in there and had a chance to look at the amazing view of the apus (mountains) and the citadel. The magical view from the Sun Gate

After having been in and eaten from the places extremely unhygienic for the last 1.5 months in South America, I managed to get a stomach bug the day of our much anticipated trip. And let me remind you that there were no bathrooms after we passed the gates, none! This resulted in me running among the mazes of the Inca town and pushing the tourists out of my way to get out to the bathroom, which kinda added more excitement to my 12 hr day in MP. After having to do that twice, I decided to wait for the group outside and missed the last part of the tour. Tip: stay away from San Pedro when you have an upset stomach!

For those who´d like to follow what we did, here is the bill for our trip (you can also choose to take a 4 day hike on the Inca Trail for which the prices vary):

– $120- round trip train ticket between Olantaytambe-Agua Calientes. The train for the tourists costs anywhere from $100-170 depending on the times of the economico and regular fares. It takes 1.5 hrs to get to Agua Calientes

sad to pay for the train from ollanta to aguas calientes…$120? i was there and for sure i m not gonna contribute to this horrible business around there…
lovely to do hiking…one way from 82km following the train rails…inkredible! also u can enjoy of more ruins without nobody..and the nature is amazing! the second way aguas calientes – hidroelectrica- santa teresa- santa maria! was beautiful!!